NICE Quality Central: A Game-Changing Enterprise Quality Management Solution - Work with Any Recording Platform and Incorporate Data from Any Source

If you ask business
executives how important it is to have a comprehensive quality management (QM) solution,
most invariably answer that it is a key priority. However, most companies
cannot fully leverage their QM system to gain access to multiple channels of
information nor can they provide the evaluation capabilities needed.

NICE
has introduced an all new enterprise-scale quality management solution designed
to change the equation. NICE Quality Central incorporates all customer
interaction data … drawn from any source … into a comprehensive evaluation
process. The solution works with any recording platform, providing the
flexibility to upgrade without requiring expensive, time-consuming
“rip-and-replace” of existing systems. The product will enable organizations to
increase employee engagement, improve process efficiency, and deliver a
superior customer experience.

There
are several challenges to implementing a truly effective QM system. According
to Lauren Maschio, Product Marketing Manager for NICE, “The primary problem is
that a holistic view is lacking. Most businesses have solutions solely geared
to evaluating front office phone calls. Since the focus is on the voice
channel, not all interactions go through quality management. With the rise of
multichannel communication, there are a lot of other interactions that should
be evaluated, such as email and chat. If a business’ quality management
solution only supports voice, that’s all they can evaluate using an automated
process.”

A
focus on front office calls only may lead to disconnected processes. “For
example, to evaluate high value health care transactions, information located
in back office data files not housed within the recording system may be needed. To audit all the disparate processes requires
different applications, including in many cases an ongoing need to use manual
procedures. This makes it difficult to look at quality as a whole. Companies
need greater flexibility and a reliable way to fully automate the QM process,”
continued Maschio.

The
next obstacles are economics and complexity. “Many quality managers are working
with older versions of QM solutions,” said Maschio. “These are often inextricably
linked to a specific recording system in such a way that you can’t implement
one without changing the other. To take advantage of needed new features, they
are faced with upgrading the recording system, which can be a huge project
requiring extensive IT support, not to mention lengthy timelines, security
risks, astronomical costs and a rocky road to achieving the ROI to justify the
expense.”

“In
quality management, the best practice is for the entire process to be
automated…who is being evaluated, who gets the information, who completes the
form…even the coaching,” she continued. “Most of the solutions available on the
market today have standard, out-of-the-box automated workflows, but are not completely
automated. There is a need to provide customized workflow automation.” She
cited such areas as evaluating compliance, which requires looking at
interactions over a specific time period. “Without the capability to tailor
their workflows to auto-expire or escalate different steps, the process would
still require manual intervention.”

But
perhaps the most pressing problem is the lack of available insight. “In some
systems, the agent can see certain parameters and the supervisors can see
others, but there is a need for a standard set of information that is visible
to all,” said Maschio. “When there is a limited number of data points in
reports and on dashboards, data cannot be segmented, making it difficult to tie quality processes to the KPIs that are
critical to the organization.”

Quality
Central unifies fragmented quality programs with disconnected data sources into
a single application. It’s a true multi-channel solution that incorporates all
interactions from all recording and non-recording sources - including social
media - to produce a unified evaluation process that more clearly depicts both
the customer and agent journey. Its capability to track, analyze and report
just about anything provides increased transparency and employee engagement,
which translates to improved agent performance.

Quality
Central is an independent application that stands alone from a company’s recording
solution. Since it is recording-agnostic, companies now have the flexibility to
cost-efficiently upgrade that was not possible with previous QM solutions.

Quality
Central is particularly effective in evaluating the activities of multi-channel
universal agents. It can look at all their interaction types with a single
customer…the chat, the email and the phone call and attach them to a single
evaluation form, giving the manager a better perspective on agent performance as
well as enabling them to assess the customer experience.

What tangible benefits can businesses expect? NICE claims
that it can inspire

Reduced
average handle times of to 30%

Improved
first call resolution of to 40%

Diminished
call hold times of up to 25%

Increased
customer satisfaction ratings of up to 40%

Quality Central
is available as an on-premise or private cloud hosted solution. The solution spurred
demand from businesses using other suppliers’ recording systems, as well as enterprise
businesses who want superior QM, analytics and recording capabilities.

“In both our
own survey and other studies of contact center executives, the KPI that was
most valued was customer satisfaction,” said Maschio. “By enabling businesses
to get a unified view of both agent and customer behaviors and understand where
improvements are needed, we believe that we are helping them to achieve this
critical business goal.”